


I Got You, Babe.

by Krank



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Sexual Content, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krank/pseuds/Krank
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is throwing himself in to his studies, and Niall comes to his rescue the only way he knows how: with a song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Got You, Babe.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rebecca.

Niall stood in the doorway of the living room, looking in on the quiet scene of his boyfriend of two years seated on their thrift store couch, surrounded by textbooks. Niall hadn't been round to hover in a while, but he assumed Harry was still absorbing sociology. It had been what he was focusing on when Niall had left for work that morning. It was eight o'clock in the evening and Harry was still at it.

It had come to the end of the year for him, and his finals were spread out across the next couple of days. Niall knew he was intelligent – he told Harry as much every day, often multiple times – but the brunette's personality didn't allow him the comfort of believing it. There was always more he could do, more he could _learn_. 

Niall couldn't wait until university was done for the summer, so that they might have some time to spend together in between their jobs they needed in order to keep their closet-sized apartment. Better yet, he couldn't wait until university was done  _period_ , when they could finally start their lives together with a whole new brand of stress other than school; Niall doing sound production like he wanted and Harry doing whatever he liked with the degrees he'd earned.

“Do you want some tea?” Niall asked, the simple question sounding like cymbals crashing in the cramped, peaceful flat. When Harry didn't respond, Niall tried again. “Babe?”

“What?” Harry finally tore his eyes away from the tiny words on his pages. “Sorry.”

Niall grinned. “I asked if you wanted some tea.”

His boyfriend's grateful smile awoke a flutter in his chest. “That sounds lovely.”

And so Niall set to work on a pot of tea, the brief task making him feel at least a bit useful. When Harry was in study mode Niall tended to stay out of the room all together, feeling like a fumbling, noisy elephant at times. It was difficult for him to do anything quietly. As it was, when he opened the cupboard to retrieve a tea bag, ten different things fell out and clattered to the floor at his feet.

When the steaming mug was ready, Niall crept in to the living room, tiptoeing around the books spread out on the floor and placing it on the coffee table (on a coaster, of course). 

“How's it going?” He asked softly, looking down at the notebook in Harry's lap. The entire page was littered with point-form notes, all in Harry's neat handwriting. 

The brunette sighed and sat back against the couch cushions, rolling his head on his shoulders as if to work out some kinks in his neck. “I've got a couple of more chapters to review. On a positive note, I think the research methods are permanently engrained on the backs of my eyelids. It's all I see every time I blink.”

Niall frowned. “ _Is_ that a positive, though?”

Harry looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged, grabbing his cup of tea off of the table.

“How's about you take a break?” Niall suggested, hoping for the best. All he really wanted was a cuddle or something. As it was, Harry had spent the previous few nights on the couch, not even bothering to come to bed. He was _terribly_ lonely.

“Ni, this exam is tomorrow at noon! The next couple of hours are all I've got.”

“Babe,” Niall sighed. “You know this. _You know_ you know this.”

Harry said nothing else, placing his cup back on the coaster and delving back in to his notes.

Feeling a bit defeated, Niall retreated to their bedroom. He flopped down on the unmade bed, unmade because his focus during the previous few days had been solely on tidying up the living room, cleaning up Harry's dirty dishes, and keeping him fed and watered whenever he was home. Sometimes Niall called on his lunch break just to make sure Harry was actually eating. He'd been mildly offended the first time Niall had called, but by the end of the conversation, Harry had admitted to making a meal of his breath mints and promised to at least have an apple. The next day Niall made a sandwich before he left for his internship, leaving a note on the fridge as a reminder.

The things he did for love.

Niall rolled over on his stomach, and as he did his eyes fell on his acoustic guitar, sitting proudly on the stand Harry had given him for Christmas. 

Niall got an idea.

  
  


He was quiet as he made his way back out in to the living room, the only sound coming from the plucked strings of his guitar. The tune he wanted was in his head, and he had to do a bit of improvising, but it sounded almost right. He walked right up to the back of the couch, Harry's head having yet to turn in his direction. 

“ _They say we're young and we don't know, we won't find out until we grow_ ,” Niall began to sing softly, leaning down so his lips were near to Harry's ear.

The brunette paused his frantic highlighting. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“Wrong. That's not the next verse,” Niall tutted.

“Niall, I don't have _time_ -”

“Humour me. Just once.” Niall took a deep breath and repeated the lyrics he'd just sang. 

He knew that Harry was likely rolling his eyes, but regardless, he cleared his throat. “ _Well I don't know if all that's true, 'cause you got me, and baby I got you_ .” 

Niall felt giddy as he rounded the sofa, his plucking having turned in to confident chords. When he caught sight of Harry's face, to his relief he was smiling.

“ _Babe_.” Niall continued, and just as he'd hoped, Harry joined in like he was supposed to. “ _I got you, babe. I got you babe_.”

Niall set his guitar down and held out his hands. “Come on.”

Harry shook his head. “Look, this was cute, but I  _have_ to -”

“Five minutes of your time, it's all I ask.” Niall wiggled his fingers. “Dance with me.”

Harry failed completely at forcing a grumpy face as he gently set aside his books and grasped Niall's outstretched hands. The blond helped him maneuver around the minefield of study material and pulled him over to a clear spot on their tacky shag rug. He snorted as Niall guided their bodies in to a classic waltz position, Harry's hand on his shoulder and Niall's arm firmly around his waist, pulling him in close.

“You don't even know how to dance,” Harry chided.

Niall scoffed. “Correction: I don't know how to dance  _well_ .”

“Well, you put down your guitar, what music will we dance to?”

Niall's response was a grin. “ _They say our love won't pay the rent, before it's earned, our money's all been spent._ ” He began to lead Harry in a small square where they stood. Harry cackled, pressing his face in to Niall's chest. His cheeks were flushed and he looked absolutely beautiful. “Come on, you know the words,” Niall whispered.

“This is silly,” Harry mumbled. Despite his reservations, though, he continued to play along. “ _I guess that's so, we don't have a pot, but at least I'm sure of all the things we got._ ” 

“ _Babe,_ ” Niall took over. “ _I got you babe._ ”

“ _I got you babe._ ”

The continued to move around their small little section of the living room. Their flat wasn't much, but it was home. The pipes were noisy whenever the water was running, the floors were terribly cold in the winter, and in the summer the windows would barely open enough for even a slight breeze to blow in. There was typically only enough hot water for one fifteen minute shower in the morning, though that just meant they had a good excuse to shower together. 

They had met through mutual friends, a wide-eyed Harry in his first year of uni, and Niall delving in to his sound production course after a particularly useless gap year. They had hit it off ridiculously well, and though some said they moved too fast, it had been two years and they were still going strong. They didn't always have a lot of money, but that would change one day. Until then, they had each other and their crappy apartment.

“ _I got flowers in the spring, I got you to wear my ring._ ” Niall's voice dropped as the atmosphere in the room became increasingly intimate. Harry's head was on his shoulder, and their dancing had morphed in to a gentle sway. 

“ _And when I'm sad, you're a clown, and if I get scared, you're always around._ ” Harry chuckled after the words left his lips. “That's quite true, actually. Somehow after everything, you've turned out to be the strong one.”

“What does that mean?” Niall frowned. His hand was growing clammy where it held tightly to Harry's, but he didn't dare let go. He couldn't. “You're strong too.”

“I'm an emotional disaster roughly eighty percent of the time.”

“We just deal with situations in different ways. I remain calm, and you overreact.”

“Emotional. Disaster.”

Niall pressed a kiss to Harry's temple to quiet him and continued, “s _ o let them say your hair's too long, 'cause I don't care, with you I can't go wrong. _ ” 

“Do you like my hair?” Harry lifted his head to meet Niall's eyes.

“I _love_ your hair.”

Niall had moments where he wasn't entirely sure what would happen in the future. A day, a month, a year – it all seemed too far away to fathom. He'd never imagined starting out that his relationship with Harry would last the way it did. Somewhere along the way they just became comfortable with one another. Not a  _ boring  _ sort of comfortable, though. It was a brand of comfortable in which every day was an adventure, be it finding a new pasta recipe or illegally downloading an obscure art house film and ultimately falling asleep to it in the middle of the afternoon. 

Well, to some it may sound terribly mundane. To Niall, though, it was exactly what he'd hoped for. 

“ _Then put your little hand in mine, there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb_.” As Harry faithfully finished his verse, Niall gripped his waist tightly and dipped him, low enough to the floor that his curls almost touched the carpet.

Harry let out a shriek at the sudden change in altitude, scrambling to grab on to Niall as securely as he could. “You bastard! Put me back on my feet.”

Niall laughed, still holding Harry suspended above the floor. “ _ I got you, babe _ ,” he sang, earning an eye roll from his unimpressed boyfriend. He puckered his lips, though, and Harry ultimately gave in with a kiss. 

Niall ended up lowering him to the floor completely, settling himself over Harry's hips.

“Mm, I think I like where this is headed,” Harry snickered, craning his neck for another kiss.

“I missed you,” Niall sighed against his lips, sliding his cool hands under Harry's university jumper.

The taller boy let out a wonderful sound, arching against his touch. “What do you mean? I haven't been anywhere.”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Niall mumbled, trailing kisses down his jaw and on to the column of his neck. He felt Harry's Adam's Apple move as he swallowed, and the breath of air escape him as he sighed.

“I've missed you, too.”

it was true that Harry  _ hadn't  _ gone anywhere, and yet him and Niall had been miles apart in recent weeks. It was a hard time for both of them, both being pulled in opposite directions as they worked towards their own dreams. Some day it would get easier, though, and Niall was prepared to wait for as long as he needed to. Then it would be bliss.

_ I got you to hold my hand. I got you to understand. _

“You know I really ought to be studying,” Harry muttered, frantically undoing the buttons on Niall's plaid shirt.

“Tell that to your cock,” the blond teased, earning a breathy laugh from the boy underneath him.

They moved with each other, exploring the other's body like it was the first time. It felt a bit raw, what they were doing. It was honest and pure and perhaps even a bit frightening. They went back to the beginning, right down to the foundation. Beyond the school deadlines, the long work days and the bills was just Niall and Harry.

_ I got you to walk with me. I got you to talk with me. _

Niall loved to witness Harry's undoing whenever they were together. He was a bit of a lazy lover, typically choosing to just lay back and let Niall do as he pleased. In turn, Niall would take that freedom and run with it, watching as Harry became a mess of sweat and sounds. It was addicting.

_ I got you to kiss goodnight, I got you to hold me tight. _

Harry gasped, his arms sliding under Niall's and curling up to hold on to his shoulders. Niall had him bent nearly in half, snapping his hips forward chasing his own end. The temperature in the room had sky rocketed, their skin slippery as it slid together.

“Niall!” Harry whined. “Fuck – I'm close. _Please_ -”

“It's okay,” Niall shushed, mouthing the words against Harry's damp collar bone. “It's okay, I've got you. I got you.” He held him tightly as the waves came crashing over them, feeling the tremble of Harry's limbs as he fell apart beneath him.

As they laid together afterward, their bodies cooling, Niall knew that their day was coming. The hard times would pass and then it would be smooth sailing, whatever they wanted at their finger tips. Maybe they would get married, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd have a house and two kids; or a house, a dog and no kids. It was a decision they'd make when the time came.

But there, on the floor of their shitty apartment, Niall had all he needed in that moment.

_ I got you, I won't let go. I got you to love me so. _

_ I got you, babe. _

  
  



End file.
